


New Year, New You

by afogocado



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:10:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5589100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afogocado/pseuds/afogocado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the reader meets Matt Murdock on New Year's Eve and spends the evening with him. The reader is also offered a position at Nelson & Murdock and spends a lot of time with Matt, noticing that he gets hurt sometimes and decides to do something about it. Tried to leave reader's gender ambiguous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year, New You

**Author's Note:**

> Fulfilling this from anonymous message on tumblr:
> 
> I have another prompt! Business at Nelson & Murdock is great so Matt needs his own secretary--the reader. They get to know each other & the reader notices Matt gets cut a lot. They leave a first aid kit at his desk & Matt realizes he likes them a lot

The only thing that could have made you get out of bed at a reasonable hour this morning was to return library books. You were tired of your cellphone screaming at you at all random hours with email notifications from the place, letting you know they were several weeks overdue. Not only that, but most of them were titles you’d had on loan back from when you were finishing your last semester of undergraduate coursework…back in April. It was now the end of December. 

You groan when you look outside. There isn’t snow out there and you wonder if it will ever fall, but the city of Hell’s Kitchen just looks so cold. You heard someone in the supermarket complaining that if it was going to get this cold, then it should snow, otherwise, what’s the point? Being from the south, you weren’t used to this, even though you did spend the past four years of your life at college up in New York. The coldest it ever got back home during this time was the low twenties. It looked below zero out. 

You bicker with yourself as you pull on thick wool socks and a pair of very worn LL Bean boots on over your feet, pulling the laces too tight in gloved hands. You nearly choke yourself with your scarf before shoving giant tomes into your backpack with the reinforced bottom that has aided you for so many years in preventing heavy books poking holes through the bottom. 

The wind outside ambushes you and it feels like it blows so deep into your ears that your head immediately starts hurting. You pull your coats hood over your head gruffly and trudge on. 

Once at the library, you dump your books at the front desk, and then go over to a corner and pretend to read while you procrastinate going back outside. 

\---

“He’s called the Boss for a reason, Matty. Okay?” Foggy’s face has never been more serious. He’s slightly pouting, too. 

It’s later in the afternoon—past five—and Foggy’s all ready to go. He stopped working on his case nearly fifteen minutes ago and he’s been awful to deal with all day because he’s been so excited about the New Year’s Eve bash at Josie’s: a massive karaoke/dance party.

The daylight is dwindling outside, and none of them have turned any of the gross, yellow, dim lights on inside yet. 

“Well, you and Karen can go.” Matt waves his hand in a general direction, towards a space away from his desk. “I just have too much stuff to get through tonight.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to miss Bruce-a-Palooza at Josie’s just because you have to work. This is why we need another secretary, sir. I mean, Karen’s always got my back.”

Karen offers a noncommittal grunt from the other room. There is a clatter where she drops a canister of coffee while trying to make a new pot for Matt after she heard that he would supposedly be pulling an all-nighter. On a holiday, nonetheless.

“I can do my own work,” Matt sounds defensive, dejected almost. “And it’s just going to be a ton of people shit-faced and karaoke singing Bruce Springsteen songs. It’s not like Bruce Springsteen is actually going to be there.”

“Once I take the stage, he may as well be there, buddy.”

They both hear Karen chuckle in a doubtful manner from the other room. 

Foggy rolls his eyes. “Well, if you’re going to be so totally swamped all night, do you think you could drop off the law books I got from the library later on for me?”

Matt offers a small smile. “Of course.” Thought he didn’t spend much time at the library, he always enjoyed it and the atmosphere it created. He especially loved when one of the librarians read things like Clifford the Big Red Dog and the Berenstain Bears in the children’s corner. He would always hang back and listen to the elderly woman read with her kind and slightly shaking voice. 

\---

You’re getting shoed out of the library a little after six that night. 

“Sorry, hon, we’re closing early,” is all the elderly librarian says to you. 

You understand, but are also mad about having to go back outside, but still push yourself up out of the warm and comfy armchair. 

When you make it down the tall flight of concrete steps outside, you see a man in a handsome coat and scarf carrying a hefty stack of books with one arm, his free hand wrapped around a cane. 

“They’re closed, you know.”

“Isn’t there a book drop?” He offers, raising his eyebrows in a hopeful manner. They are just as handsome as his coat, you notice. And so is his face, even though his eyes are hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, leaving him somewhat obscured. 

“Yes, but your books will probably be considered late by the time they get checked back in.”

“Not my books,” he grins swiftly. 

“Here,” you go to take a good portion of the ones at the top of the stack and he obliges, resting the remaining books against his side. “Jeeze, you must be strong, carrying all of that with one arm.”

He finishes tossing his books intot he chute and grins slyly, rubbing the back of his neck with a gloved hand, “Yeah, I guess.” He chuckles. “I’m Matt,” he offers his hand which you take in your own gloved one, “Murdock.”

“I’m Y/N L/N.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

A silence passes between the both of you before you decide to break it, “So what are you doing coming to a library on New Year’s evening?”

“I guess I could ask you the same.”

“I had way late books. Other than that, I didn’t really have plans.”

He nods, showing that he’s listening. “I decided to take a break from work to stretch my legs and drop these off for a friend, before getting back to work.”

“What do you do?” You don’t realize how forward this question is until the words fly out of your throat. 

“I’m a lawyer. Here, let’s grab a cab or something, it’s too cold to just be standing out here like this.” 

“Oh, wow. How do you even know where I’m going?”  
“Do you like Bruce Springsteen?”

“Are you kidding, he’s not called the Boss for nothing.”

He grins at you as he expertly flags a cab down, encouraging you to enter first. “He won’t be where we’re going, but you probably won’t be disappointed.”

\---

You are disappointed with how you spend New Year’s Eve. 

It’s cute how Foggy and Karen share a kiss at midnight. You and Matt are the only ones without a partner to kiss. He is sitting adjacent to you and the way he has his head cocked towards you, it’s almost like he’s looking at you as he’s smiling in your direction. You blush in the bar’s dim and neon glow. He leans in close and murmurs a, “Happy New Year, Y/N,” and pulls away just as more complimentary glasses of champagne and confetti float through, and as ‘Auld Lang Syne’ changes to the Boss’s ‘She’s the One’.

No, for once, New Year’s Eve is not disappointing. And you aren’t disappointed that you walk away with a new job that night, as well.

\---

Working as Matt Murdock’s secretary has its perks, but is also strange at times. 

It’s a small office and you become fast friends with everyone and before you know it, it’s late-Spring again and you are able to enjoy the weather with your coworkers/friends and go out for nice lunches from time to time, sitting outside on terraces and outdoor furniture. Even though you’re a tight knit group, there are still some things you think not everyone shares with one another, especially some types of personal business. You are sure, by the end of your second or so month working there that Matt isn’t entirely open with everyone, as they believe. 

He comes to work sluggish all the time, like he’s hung over. Sometimes Foggy will catch these things, but for whatever reason, he always equates it with Matt having a crazy night out (or in) with a girl (or several). You’re sure that Foggy doesn’t pay as much attention as he would be able to if both he and Matt’s office spaces were closer together. Instead, they are in separate rooms and because of such long hours, you spend way more time with Matt than you ever thought you would, especially when you first signed on to the job. Most of this time is spent after hours when Foggy and Karen have long-past left. 

A lot of this after hours time is spent with him walking you home after work, almost pressed against you as you navigate the dark streets to your neighborhood, which is only about five or so city blocks away. During these walks, you talk about a lot of things. You’re almost like his diary during these times with him giving you insight and details about his childhood and more formative years. Oftentimes, you stand outside talking for so long that you invite him up to your apartment to have coffee or a small snack and continue talking. And on more than one occasion, you’ve fallen asleep on the couch together several times in uncomfortable positions. 

This is when things kind of started getting weird to you because it was in these moments that you would notice things about Matt that you didn’t really notice in the day time. Like the bruises and cuts. And scar tissue. And how some of the fresher cuts looked almost deep enough to need stitches. On more than one occasion, he’d woken up before you and had already left your apartment. Once, he left his cane behind and he gave you some lame excuse of sleepwalking or something. 

Whatever the case, you’re sure that something is up and you’re worried that he may be hurting himself. So one morning, you get to work before everyone else and slip a small first aid kit onto his desk chair and then scoot the chair back into its place. You know that Matt sees it later on in the day, but he doesn’t mention it and neither do you. In fact, he doesn’t say anything to you for the rest of the day and you worry that you’ve messed up. He doesn’t even walk you home that night. He lets you go early. 

But later that night when you’re watching Netflix in bed, trying to avoid the guilty churn of your stomach, there is a knock at your apartment door. When you answer it, you find Matt standing there with a sheepish grin on his face and a single yellow rose in his free hand. 

“I went to the florist and asked her to for a thank-you flower. I think this is it?” He offers it to you. “So, thank you. For looking out for me, I mean.”

“Oh,” you feel taken aback as you invite him inside. “You’re welcome. I just—I was worried, you know.”

He nods and walks to your couch like he has done so many times before. You follow him. He sits with his knees knocked together, looking much smaller and much younger. “I need to tell you something.”

“Okay…”

“It’s about what I do at night.”


End file.
